News : Women

By INU StaffINU - According to a statement by the National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the Tasnim News Agency, affiliated to the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force, reported that at least four clothing production and distribution units in Isfahan, central Iran, have been closed down in an effort to eliminate women’s clothing deemed un-Islamic and incompatible with fundamentalist regulations.

Head of the clothing manufacturers’ union in Isfahan, Ebrahim Khatabakhsh, told Tasnim: “Clothes production and distribution lines in Isfahan that do not conform to the standards of the Islamic Republic of Iran are being dealt with.” He added, "Some of these production units have been ordered to adapt their clothing with Iranian-Islamic culture and standards. There are less smuggled foreign clothes being seen in Isfahan these days.”

Khatabakhsh also said that open front coats with designer patterns are targeted, and said that ‘sting operations’ by the regime’s ‘morality police’ will continue throughout the city. “Currently joint inspections are being carried out in the mornings and afternoons until all the areas have been inspected.”

This should be seen as a continuation of the regime’s repressive attitude toward women, following so closely upon the women bicyclists who were on Tuesday arrested, in Marivan. The women were planning to participate in a sports event to cycle from the city's Stadium Square to the Zaribar Lake.

According to eye-witnesses, state security forces (police) approached the women and girls and informed them that based on a new government directive cycling by women in public places is barred and considered “unlawful.” They demanded that the women and girls sign written pledges to not repeat their "violation" of cycling in public.